Sky Cell

Most prisons have walls and guards. This one is open to the air. In fact, there's open air below it as well. The only way out is through the door or by flying. May be on top of a tower, but that's not necessarily the case. Obviously, this tends to be an example of The Alcatraz, as most settings rarely have people capable of unpowered flight. It's rarely an Oubliette, simply because it's a rather generic way of containing people who can't fly.

Note that the key aspect is an easily reachable drop, or unlocked airlock IN SPACE!. If reaching the fatal drop requires what would be a major breakout attempt on the ground, it's not an example of this trope. If you're not quite sure, ask yourself if it would be remotely secure on the ground.

Examples:

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Comic Books

In Thorgal there is "mouth of the Sun", though it is more a death penalty than a prison. The victims are taken (via a net on ropes) to a small cave in the face of the cliff. Not only do they have no way out, short of jumping to their deaths but the whole thing is located in the desert and the cave is facing south and not nearly deep enough to provide shade... even if it wasn't filled with mirror-like crystals.

Lucky Luke: "Tortillas for the Daltons" has Joe escape from Luke onto a mesa... only to find that he's trapped on maybe four square feet of dirt. When Luke suggests he come back in a year or so, Joe quickly surrenders.

Judge Dredd has one "prison" that's simply a raised platform above a constantly busy superhighway. Any crooks that tried to escape would be pulverized by traffic.

Film

In Time Bandits, after Evil takes the map, he locks the Bandits in a cage hung above a huge chasm.

From the movie First Knight, as Guinevere is led across a hanging bridge to a small ledge over a bottomless pit...

Maligant: This is called an oubliette. That's French for "a place of forgetting." Your quarters, My Lady. No gates, no bars, no locks. Just walls of air.

An Ard Skellig island in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has prison cells clearly inspired by the sky cells from Game of Thrones, as proved by the corpse of a Tyrion lookalike and some lines of dialogue taken from the show.

Durgesh Prison from Far Cry 4 has a few of these. Ajay gets stuck in one and escapes by assembling a makeshift grappling hook.

Western Animation

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Earthbender prison is built far out at sea with only a few token handrails, ensuring the prisoners have no contact with dirt to fight with.

The Legend of Korra: While Zaheer's prison has walls, it's built on a remote mountaintop and still has guards. Every precaution was taken, but no one (including Zaheer) could have predicted that he'd gain airbending abilities that allowed him to quickly escape the mountain.

The second season of Loonatics Unleashed has many dangerous superpowered criminals moved from deep subterranean burrows to a prison satellite in orbit above the stratosphere of Acmetropolis. Many of the Loonatics' Rogues Gallery are housed in the satellite, including Massive, Otto the Odd and Electro J. Fudd.

In Thorgal there is "mouth of the Sun", though it is more a death penalty than a prison. The victims are taken (via a net on ropes) to a small cave in the face of the cliff. Not only do they have no way out, short of jumping to their deaths but the whole thing is located in the desert and the cave is facing south and not nearly deep enough to provide shade... even if it wasn't filled with mirror-like crystals.

I've provisionally added the examples and clarified the trope some more. Someone with more familiarity with the examples could say if they're this trope or a standard prison that happens to be surrounded by fatal drops.

An Ard Skellig island in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt has prison cells clearly inspired by the sky cells from Game Of Thrones, as proved by the corpse of a Tyrion lookalike and some lines of dialogue taken from the show.

Avatar The Last Airbender: The Earthbender prison is built far out at sea with only a few token handrails, ensuring the prisoners have no contact with dirt to fight with.

The Legend Of Korra: While Zaheer's prison has walls, it's built on a remote mountaintop and still has guards. Every precaution was taken, but no one (including Zaheer) could have predicted that he'd gain airbending abilities that allowed him to quickly escape the mountain.

Lucky Luke: "Tortillas for the Daltons" has Joe escape from Luke onto a mesa... only to find that he's trapped on maybe four square feet of dirt. When Luke suggests he come back in a year or so, Joe quickly surrenders.

The second season of Loonatics Unleashed has many dangerous superpowered criminals moved from deep subterranean burrows to a prison satellite in orbit above the stratosphere of Acmetropolis. Many of the Loonatics' Rogues Gallery are housed in the satellite, including Massive, Otto the Odd and Electro J. Fudd.

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